Bobby Valentine, AmeriCares team up for Japan relief

Updated 6:52 am, Friday, April 15, 2011

The former Mets manager helped orchestrate an airlift of supplies to Japan after the recent earthquakes and tsunami. Now he's helping in other ways.

Media: Stamford Advocate

STAMFORD -- Former New York Mets Manager Bobby Valentine has teamed up with Stamford-based AmeriCares to provide aid to earthquake-ravaged Japan, where he had spent seven years managing the Chiba Lotte Marines.

Valentine, 60, a Stamford native, stood in the agency's 60,000 square-foot warehouse on Hamilton Avenue Thursday with AmeriCares President and CEO Curtis Welling, describing the collaborative effort to airlift more than $525,000 worth of medicine and supplies to hospitals and evacuation centers in Sendai, Japan, a city in the center of the devastation.

"They were in need of a dropping point, and I had a friend who was a director of elderly nursing homes and his brother is the director of some hospitals in Sendai," Valentine said.

Valentine, an ESPN analyst on "Sunday Night Baseball," managed the Marines for seven seasons. The Chiba Lotte team hosted the Rakuten Eagles in Japan's season opener on Tuesday because the Eagles home stadium in Sendai won't be usable until later this month.

"Everything magically came together and the needs that the hospitals had there were met by the drop . . . and when these five 18-wheelers came rolling into the city, I felt the presence of greatness on the phone lines when people said, `We saw them. It came. It's actually here,'" Valentine said.

AmeriCares President & CEO Curt Welling and former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine announce a new partnership to deliver medicines and supplies to survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan at the AmeriCares warehouse on Hamilton Avenue in Stamford, Conn., April 14, 2011. AmeriCares has been delivering critically needed aid to hospitals and shelters in the impact zone in the aftermath of the March 11 disaster.

AmeriCares President & CEO Curt Welling and former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine announce a new partnership to deliver medicines and supplies to survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami

AmeriCares President & CEO Curt Welling and former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine announce a new partnership to deliver medicines and supplies to survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan at the AmeriCares warehouse on Hamilton Avenue in Stamford, Conn., April 14, 2011. AmeriCares has been delivering critically needed aid to hospitals and shelters in the impact zone in the aftermath of the March 11 disaster.

AmeriCares President & CEO Curt Welling and former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine announce a new partnership to deliver medicines and supplies to survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami

Former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine announces a new partnership to deliver medicines and supplies to survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan at the AmeriCares warehouse on Hamilton Avenue in Stamford, Conn., April 14, 2011. AmeriCares has been delivering critically needed aid to hospitals and shelters in the impact zone in the aftermath of the March 11 disaster.

Former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine announces a new partnership to deliver medicines and supplies to survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan at the AmeriCares warehouse on Hamilton

AmeriCares President & CEO Curt Welling and former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine announce a new partnership to deliver medicines and supplies to survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan at the AmeriCares warehouse on Hamilton Avenue in Stamford, Conn., April 14, 2011. AmeriCares has been delivering critically needed aid to hospitals and shelters in the impact zone in the aftermath of the March 11 disaster.

AmeriCares President & CEO Curt Welling and former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine announce a new partnership to deliver medicines and supplies to survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami

AmeriCares President & CEO Curt Welling announces a new partnership with former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine to deliver medicines and supplies to survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan at the AmeriCares warehouse on Hamilton Avenue in Stamford, Conn., April 14, 2011. AmeriCares has been delivering critically needed aid to hospitals and shelters in the impact zone in the aftermath of the March 11 disaster.

AmeriCares President & CEO Curt Welling announces a new partnership with former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine to deliver medicines and supplies to survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami

AmeriCares President & CEO Curt Welling and former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine announce a new partnership to deliver medicines and supplies to survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan at the AmeriCares warehouse on Hamilton Avenue in Stamford, Conn., April 14, 2011. AmeriCares has been delivering critically needed aid to hospitals and shelters in the impact zone in the aftermath of the March 11 disaster.

AmeriCares President & CEO Curt Welling and former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine announce a new partnership to deliver medicines and supplies to survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami